The Warm War

Week by week the Soviet satellite states are giving their Roman Catholic priests and nuns fresh insight into the problems of the early Christians.

In Rumania the Communist government decreed last week that all welfare activities by Roman Catholic religious orders must cease by Aug. 15. Monks and nuns engaged in charity and hospital work, said the decree, were no longer needed in a solicitous People's Democracy.

Dissolved by this Communist ukase were about 15 Catholic charitable organizations, among them the internationally known nursing sisters of St. Vincent de Paul. The 1,400 nuns and 100 monks affected were given 15 days to make up their minds whether to 1) retire to one of three cloisters and two monasteries set aside by the government for the purpose; 2) enter homes for the aged; 3) quit clerical life altogether and register for jobs at state employment bureaus.

In Czechoslovakia the government produced a package of priestly "high treason." The Rev. Alois Fajstl, the state announced, had been sentenced to eight years' imprisonment plus confiscation of his property and loss of civil rights for ten years. The charge: when called to give the last rites of the church to a woman apparently dying of pneumonia, Father Fajstl first asked if she were a Communist, then withheld the sacrament until she had sent her son to party headquarters to turn in her membership card. Instead of dying, the government said, the woman recovered and denounced the priest for thus applying the recent Vatican decree of excommunication (TIME, July 25).

Father Fajstl was reported to have denied the charge, refusing at the same time to reveal what actually took place at the woman's bedside, on the grounds that this would be breaking the seal of the confessional.

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